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Road trip with Tim Pawlenty

Tim Pawlenty kicks off his "Road to Results" tour of Iowa today, starting with a midday town hall in Coralville. He'll drive nearly 700 miles in the RV above, visiting some 13 counties and 18 cities by Friday.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty's presidential campaign has had a rough few weeks, but he got a journalistic upper-cut to the jaw this week from a respected, longtime, political columnist who proclaimed his bid all but dead.

Walter Shapiro, writing in the New Republic, unspooled a long profile about T-Paw, headlined, "The Tragedy of Tim Pawlenty -- He did everything right. And that was the problem."

Shapiro's conclusion:

If presidential politics were a rational enterprise governed by flow charts and PowerPoints, then Pawlenty -- a competent, conservative former governor -- would be in serious contention right now, perhaps a few strides off the pace as the GOP race heads into its first turn. But, instead, less than a month before the August 13 Iowa Straw Poll,Pawlenty finds himself struggling to gain his footing. Poll numbers mired in the single digits, a soporific debate performance in New Hampshire, anemic fundraising -- all have contributed to a media verdict that Pawlenty is nearly finished before he has really begun.

This storyline has clearly been over-hyped. With a weak GOP field, it is a mistake to write off Pawlenty more than six months before the Iowa caucuses. Yet it is also undeniable that the former Minnesota governor is in serious trouble. After a month on the Pawlenty beat .. I came to appreciate the tragedy of his situation.